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Large Apartment Fire Burns On Detroit’s West Side

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DETROIT (WWJ) – Firefighters are trying to get the upper hand on a large apartment fire on Detroit’s west side.

The fire broke out Wednesday morning at the Ramblewood Apartments on Memorial Street and Fullerton Avenue, near the I-96 and Southfield Freeway interchange. The fire is sending large plumes of thick smoke over the freeways.

“The apartments are in a horseshoe so it’s the western end where there are three buildings in a row, it looks like possibly 20-plus units here, and the smoke keeps going from white to gray — which means they’re not having a good time getting a handle on this fire,” WWJ’s Bill Szumanski reported from above the fire in Chopper 950. “We do have three, maybe four units pumping water on this building fire.”

Resident Karen Brooks said she was sleeping when the fire started.

“Somebody was knocking on the door, banging. First, they tried to ring the door bell and that didn’t work, so they started yelling ‘Fire! Fire!’ and that’s when I got my son and told my sister ‘Let’s go, let’s get out.’ You can see, we ain’t got no shoes on, none of us do. We just ran out,” Brooks told WWJ’s Charlie Langton.

The fire appears to have started on the third floor, although a cause was not immediately identified.